John, thanks for this post, my comment on the last post was a bit premature. The "cryogenic" era of life-extensionism certainly was fun, people would hand out laminated cards to (some) of their friends with a phone number to be called in the event of their death. Since most had yet to make their big score, all they could afford (for a big up front fee and a monthly "maintenance" fee) was to get their heads frozen. So, those of us who were unenlightened called them the "freezer heads". I assume there are still some freezers running somewhere in Marin with a few remaining occupants.
There is there was that weird set of followers of the "teachings" of Aleister Crowley, a convoluted thread that passed through L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, Jack Parsons, JPL, Caltech, and from there into the early SF/SV engineering scene. And, of course the biggest SV cult of all, the followers of the Gospel of Saint Ayn Rand.
There are, I believe, a few things that may be hard to see except from an outsider (non-white) perspective. The first is the relentless "whiteness" of the proposed techno-utopias, at least until a PR person notices and darkens in a few faces. I don't think this is accidental, nor is it accidental that William Shockley was one of the founding "fathers" of Silicon Valley and a true believer in eugenics his entire life. Now let's move jump to Elon Musk and all those baby mommas, each required to take a genetic test before they could join the fun. Just what sort of genetic "impurities" would he be looking for? Looked at another way, we have white "engineers" engineering a white future, the one true religion of SV. How many non-white people were allowed into Galt's Gulch?
"The first is the relentless "whiteness" of the proposed techno-utopias, at least until a PR person notices and darkens in a few faces. I don't think this is accidental, nor is it accidental that William Shockley was one of the founding "fathers" of Silicon Valley and a true believer in eugenics his entire life."
...Which is what ultimately broke me, to my former wife and friends' considerable relief, of my own admiration for Ayn Rand. I kept wondering why all my libertarian allies were complete assholes like Glenn Beck, Howard Stern, Rand Paul, and Clarence Thomas (the "Token Negro" of an otherwise White, White, White movement!)—and why "the Rights of the Individual" always seemed to mean "Corporations" to them, rather than "Persons", and why those Persons they did mean were almost always Palefaces Like Me.
My own father, who was profoundly a Conservative Protestant Career Army Sergeant, nonetheless took "Integration" very seriously because the Army did, and taught his children (often harshly) to do the same. We all got our mouths washed out with soap for saying "dirty words" and Taking the Lord's Name in Vain—which to Dad included using the "N" word, the "G" word, or the "S" word, because they were All Americans who All Served Their Country, full stop! So when I moved from Protestantism to Libertarianism, I seriously thought it meant Black, Asian, and Hispanic people as well as White people—also women and gays, because Freedom and Equality, right?
🤦♂️ Apparently not, at least according to most Libertarians.
I had a similar experience. My family was on one of its cross country road trips when I had a big fight with my dad. The next day we rolled into Seattle where, alone, wandering the streets, a similarly pretty girl (I detect a trend) suggested I come to an office and take a personality test that would help me achieve my goals or something. I did. Predictably, it pretty much hit the nail on the head for an agitated teen boy. If I hadn't had to be back to the car by 4:30, I, too, might have been a Scientologist.
First, thanks for your comment, I'm so glad to see you here, and I hope you're well.
Second, I am not familiar with BITE, but I will definitely look into it. I value your insights into cults and the psychological mechanisms that drive them. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll get back to you after I've read more.
Third, as always, thanks for any attention you care top bring to either of my essays 'Silicon Valley über alles' and/or 'The varieties of Silicon Valley religious experience'. Not only are the topics I write about in these posts deeply important to me, and not only have I put a lot of work into them, but I also really believe that In Formation magazine, #3, is a kind of masterpiece (if such a word can be applied to large-format print magazines, and I think it can), and I believe that 95 out of 100 people who ever hold a copy in their hands will be blown away. But our marketing budget is $0.0, so word of mouth is all we've got. So thanks in advance.
Thanks again. jrs
[Note to readers: Matt, whom I've only met online, was one of the very first founding subscribers to Sundman figures it out! He has since faced some health challenges. A self-described escapee from fundamentalist Christianity, Matt writes & podcasts about the impulses (need for belonging; answers to questions about the meaning of our existence ,etc) that sometimes wind up getting people seduced into cults. Sometimes, frankly, Matt's metaphysical speculations are a bit too 'woo-woo' for me. But he is a deep thinker & rock-solid human being. Check him out. (Just click on his name, above.)]
I had already ascended. I settled on your essay like a nocturnal hunter, eyes glinting at the spectacle of Silicon Valley’s techno-preachers peddling blockchain salvation and bottled youth. You’ve sketched biohackers raising CRISPR cocktails like consecrated wine and crowds murmuring “HODL” like a sacred chant—brilliantly cutting through the shimmer to reveal that the promise of eternal life often comes with a monthly subscription. Few dare to point out that “radiant joy” marketed by code jockeys and supplement kings is little more than high-tech snake oil, and you do it with the precision of a cat’s claw.
Still, beneath the gleaming hype and venture-capital psalms, you detect something almost noble: a tremor of genuine longing to transcend our fragile bodies. That impulse isn’t absurd, just misapplied, like chasing the moon’s reflection instead of climbing the mountain itself. Your critique reminds us that humanity’s greatest leaps begin with a question—why accept our limits?*—and that a bit of history might temper tomorrow’s zeal. Keep sharpening that skeptic’s gaze, but don’t snuff out the spark that drives us to imagine new horizons beyond skin and bone.
Sid.
* Cats are indifferent about limitations but find your aspirations entertaining.
I thank you for this generous, poetic praise. I agree that there is good in the drive to reduce suffering & alleviate the ravages of aging. I'm all for that. But savage narcissism and the eugenic impulse are everywhere among the current crop of Silicon Valley moguls, and I guess I feel a moral obligation to shoot spitballs in their general direction.
Thanks in advance for all help promoting my essays relating to 'In Formation.' Just as the salary of all of us nearly 40 contributors was $0.0, so is the marketing budget. I believe that if anybody who's basically attuned to what's going on in the world these days gets a copy of In Formaton #3 in their hands they'll become a convert & proselytizer. But we need all the help we can get making people aware that this magazine even exists.
I ascended when I received my copy of In Formation #3. Like Sundman says, "a truly wondrous magazine — satirical, laugh out loud funny, and 100% serious and profound." BTW, John, loved your post and the essay! “Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.” -- Voltaire
John, thanks for this post, my comment on the last post was a bit premature. The "cryogenic" era of life-extensionism certainly was fun, people would hand out laminated cards to (some) of their friends with a phone number to be called in the event of their death. Since most had yet to make their big score, all they could afford (for a big up front fee and a monthly "maintenance" fee) was to get their heads frozen. So, those of us who were unenlightened called them the "freezer heads". I assume there are still some freezers running somewhere in Marin with a few remaining occupants.
There is there was that weird set of followers of the "teachings" of Aleister Crowley, a convoluted thread that passed through L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlein, Jack Parsons, JPL, Caltech, and from there into the early SF/SV engineering scene. And, of course the biggest SV cult of all, the followers of the Gospel of Saint Ayn Rand.
There are, I believe, a few things that may be hard to see except from an outsider (non-white) perspective. The first is the relentless "whiteness" of the proposed techno-utopias, at least until a PR person notices and darkens in a few faces. I don't think this is accidental, nor is it accidental that William Shockley was one of the founding "fathers" of Silicon Valley and a true believer in eugenics his entire life. Now let's move jump to Elon Musk and all those baby mommas, each required to take a genetic test before they could join the fun. Just what sort of genetic "impurities" would he be looking for? Looked at another way, we have white "engineers" engineering a white future, the one true religion of SV. How many non-white people were allowed into Galt's Gulch?
"The first is the relentless "whiteness" of the proposed techno-utopias, at least until a PR person notices and darkens in a few faces. I don't think this is accidental, nor is it accidental that William Shockley was one of the founding "fathers" of Silicon Valley and a true believer in eugenics his entire life."
...Which is what ultimately broke me, to my former wife and friends' considerable relief, of my own admiration for Ayn Rand. I kept wondering why all my libertarian allies were complete assholes like Glenn Beck, Howard Stern, Rand Paul, and Clarence Thomas (the "Token Negro" of an otherwise White, White, White movement!)—and why "the Rights of the Individual" always seemed to mean "Corporations" to them, rather than "Persons", and why those Persons they did mean were almost always Palefaces Like Me.
My own father, who was profoundly a Conservative Protestant Career Army Sergeant, nonetheless took "Integration" very seriously because the Army did, and taught his children (often harshly) to do the same. We all got our mouths washed out with soap for saying "dirty words" and Taking the Lord's Name in Vain—which to Dad included using the "N" word, the "G" word, or the "S" word, because they were All Americans who All Served Their Country, full stop! So when I moved from Protestantism to Libertarianism, I seriously thought it meant Black, Asian, and Hispanic people as well as White people—also women and gays, because Freedom and Equality, right?
🤦♂️ Apparently not, at least according to most Libertarians.
Amen.
See David Noble The Religion of Technology and A World Without Women (Knopf).
My The View From Asilomar is on my Substack On Watch. Later this summer I will post a short essay on AI and San Francisco.
The political meaning thereof. See Gil Duran (Nerd Reich) at the Commonwealth Club.
Excellent essay. Kudos.
Thank you. I’ll check ‘em out.
I had a similar experience. My family was on one of its cross country road trips when I had a big fight with my dad. The next day we rolled into Seattle where, alone, wandering the streets, a similarly pretty girl (I detect a trend) suggested I come to an office and take a personality test that would help me achieve my goals or something. I did. Predictably, it pretty much hit the nail on the head for an agitated teen boy. If I hadn't had to be back to the car by 4:30, I, too, might have been a Scientologist.
Bullet dodged! Phew, that was close!
Curious if you are familiar with the BITE model of authoritarian control (https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model-pdf-download/) and if you see any parallels in SV.
Matt,
First, thanks for your comment, I'm so glad to see you here, and I hope you're well.
Second, I am not familiar with BITE, but I will definitely look into it. I value your insights into cults and the psychological mechanisms that drive them. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll get back to you after I've read more.
Third, as always, thanks for any attention you care top bring to either of my essays 'Silicon Valley über alles' and/or 'The varieties of Silicon Valley religious experience'. Not only are the topics I write about in these posts deeply important to me, and not only have I put a lot of work into them, but I also really believe that In Formation magazine, #3, is a kind of masterpiece (if such a word can be applied to large-format print magazines, and I think it can), and I believe that 95 out of 100 people who ever hold a copy in their hands will be blown away. But our marketing budget is $0.0, so word of mouth is all we've got. So thanks in advance.
Thanks again. jrs
[Note to readers: Matt, whom I've only met online, was one of the very first founding subscribers to Sundman figures it out! He has since faced some health challenges. A self-described escapee from fundamentalist Christianity, Matt writes & podcasts about the impulses (need for belonging; answers to questions about the meaning of our existence ,etc) that sometimes wind up getting people seduced into cults. Sometimes, frankly, Matt's metaphysical speculations are a bit too 'woo-woo' for me. But he is a deep thinker & rock-solid human being. Check him out. (Just click on his name, above.)]
I had already ascended. I settled on your essay like a nocturnal hunter, eyes glinting at the spectacle of Silicon Valley’s techno-preachers peddling blockchain salvation and bottled youth. You’ve sketched biohackers raising CRISPR cocktails like consecrated wine and crowds murmuring “HODL” like a sacred chant—brilliantly cutting through the shimmer to reveal that the promise of eternal life often comes with a monthly subscription. Few dare to point out that “radiant joy” marketed by code jockeys and supplement kings is little more than high-tech snake oil, and you do it with the precision of a cat’s claw.
Still, beneath the gleaming hype and venture-capital psalms, you detect something almost noble: a tremor of genuine longing to transcend our fragile bodies. That impulse isn’t absurd, just misapplied, like chasing the moon’s reflection instead of climbing the mountain itself. Your critique reminds us that humanity’s greatest leaps begin with a question—why accept our limits?*—and that a bit of history might temper tomorrow’s zeal. Keep sharpening that skeptic’s gaze, but don’t snuff out the spark that drives us to imagine new horizons beyond skin and bone.
Sid.
* Cats are indifferent about limitations but find your aspirations entertaining.
Sid,
I thank you for this generous, poetic praise. I agree that there is good in the drive to reduce suffering & alleviate the ravages of aging. I'm all for that. But savage narcissism and the eugenic impulse are everywhere among the current crop of Silicon Valley moguls, and I guess I feel a moral obligation to shoot spitballs in their general direction.
Thanks in advance for all help promoting my essays relating to 'In Formation.' Just as the salary of all of us nearly 40 contributors was $0.0, so is the marketing budget. I believe that if anybody who's basically attuned to what's going on in the world these days gets a copy of In Formaton #3 in their hands they'll become a convert & proselytizer. But we need all the help we can get making people aware that this magazine even exists.
I ascended when I received my copy of In Formation #3. Like Sundman says, "a truly wondrous magazine — satirical, laugh out loud funny, and 100% serious and profound." BTW, John, loved your post and the essay! “Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.” -- Voltaire